Day 14th – St-Jean-Port-Joli to St. Vallier
After watching Japan come to a heart breaking penalty kick shootout loss against Paraguay, we checked out of the motel and got back on the road. The actual soccer game was not very eventful, with a 0-0 scoreline after 120 minutes, but to me every play was very intense and I was glued to the TV for the entire time. All good things come to an end, and that was it for Japan’s World Cup run. I think they could have done a little better, but growing up playing soccer in the nineties in Japan during their soccer boom years, it makes me proud that they are finally living up to the potential I knew first hand that they always had. Four more years!
Okay, back to our actual bike trip. Not much actually happened today, except that it started to rain quite a bit near the end. We stopped in St. Vallier to look for the bakery Katherine had read about in the Quebec cycling guide. We couldn’t find it right away and decided to stop at the local marche to pick up dinner. We asked the girl at the counter where the nearest campsite would be, and she discussed it with the man in line. The man gave us good instructions to where we had to go, which matched the directions we were already following to the same campground. With only 20km to go, we were ready to keep at it in the rain. As we were heading out, the man came out of the store and said we could pitch a tent on his lawn if we would like to. He said we could come check it out and could decide then. He said he wasn’t entirely sure if we could stay, which we weren’t really sure what he meant by that, but Katherine thought maybe he needed to get someone’s permission first. He said his place was just down the road on the water, so we followed his car on our bikes.
We later learned that he was just renting the cottage and knew that his lease stated no tents on the property. Once he checked out that his landlord was done fixing the place next door and was gone for the day, he said it would be no problem. He was really nice and let us stay in his house and watch the news with him until the rain stopped. He had a lovely cottage right on the water with a spectacular view of the river.
His name was Nile and we introduced ourselves. He teaches music in Laval University, and rents the cottage for a couple months in the summer. There were many artistic pieces around that looked like he had worked on recently. He said last year they only had 4 sunny days in June, but this year they had 18 straight days (except when we arrived). The clouds quickly went away and the rain stopped as we were chatting.
As we chatted more he showed us a web site he had made. It was about having one song that could be sung by everyone in the world together, all in their own languages. Katherine recalled hearing about it on CBC radio a few years ago. His web site was translated in all the different languages, it was truly amazing. He had his students help him to put it all together. Reading his web site with him beside us, we then learned that writing such a song was a promise he had made to his son when he was young. His son had passed away at a young age, and he was fulfilling his promise to him. The song when sung together by everyone around the world at the same time in harmony, is meant to be a symbol of peace and unity of the world. It was a very touching story. His web site is here so you can read about it yourself.
After a bit more chatting, we pitched our tent on his property. With the beautiful view, I cooked the pork chops, green pepper, and potatoes we had bought at the marche where we had met Nile. These fresh ‘new potatoes’ are truly amazing. They are a little more expensive than regular potatoes because they are taken from the ground before they get too big, but there is such a difference in their taste. After watching the sunset, we called it an early night.
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Trip Around The World 
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